try and drown out the screaming(you can't, it's inside you)
by trypophobica
Summary: Kendall still remembers it, the accident. It's on the tip of his tongue, his fingers, his eyelashes. It's in the air and inside him, thick and dense, and he's suffocating under the memories- he'd been told that the more time passes, the less bad it'll feel, but still after all this time, all Kendall feels is a cold numbness.


**a/n: **hardy muhfuckin har. have fun with this one ya'll

* * *

Los Angeles was a hustling and bustling city. It was loud and bright and crowded, the air dense with hope and heavy with desperation. The buildings stood tall and proud, light fragmenting off of crystal clear fountain water brilliantly. Gargoyles and statues sneered at pedestrians and fancy cars. Clouds were uncommon but beautiful, willowy wisps peppering the sky with their scarcity.

Dogs adorned as totes on celebrities chests barked, yipped, almost as excited by the stimuli as the people themselves. Tattoo parlors and vintage clothing stores littered the rusk, rust-tinted streets, accentuated perfectly by dark, looming street lamps.

It was intimidating, really, how small one could feel in such a busy city. How insignificant.

Useless.

It was a different story at night, though. Club and bars made themselves known in the city by the sounds of dull bass beats reverberating deep within their cores, heavy and strong with force. All lights in the city were on now, making it seem surreally neon and bright. The streets were crowded, yes, but traffic would loosen up and the sounds of honking that would normally be present during the day, along with every other sound in the city, would melt into a dull buzz by 11 at the latest.

It was a sort of still life, like a photo caught at the perfect moment- but a photo nonetheless. It was hard to bring yourself to reality in LA's nighttime, hard to stop from succumbing to the eerily utopic atmosphere.

At night, when the sun would just finally dissappear from sight, the sky would illuminate into a beautiful gradient of ink and deep blue, contrasting perfectly with the pale stars and razor-sharp moon. The resulting dim light emitted from them would cast the faintest glow on the tips of the buildings, rendering the tips of skyscrapers to beautiful daggers, black against the navy sky.

On this particular evening, which was no evening in particular, the vintage clothes stores and libraries were just beginning to close down, turn off their lights and hide behind a shell of blinds and locked doors.

In contrast, bouncers began to emerge from the cocoon of run down bars, over-the-top VIP nightclubs and deferring strip-clubs, and lines that had already formed outside said buildings only grew longer. The sun's final few rays were still visible against the sky, causing a beautiful cascade of pinks, purples and blues across it, accentuated by deep magenta and purple veins branched alongst clouds. The stars hadn't come out yet, but the moon was faintly visible, peeking out from behind a rather large billow of cloud.

The roofs of skyscrapers were, like at night, rendered to nothing but grey silhouettes with orange shadows. Most of these cooperate skyscrapers were the same- all silver, tall with pointed tips, shiny blue windows, fantastically overdone gardens on the roof and a front garden that any botanist would be jealous of. Buildings of this type weren't exactly uncommon, row upon row of them peppered across the grid of roads that made up the fantastic city of LA. One particular building(which wasn't any building in particular) was of special interest on this night, a night like any other.

This skyscraper looked exactly like the others- save for a simple ash-grey logo monogramed on the glass double doors: two "R"s doubled up back to back, beautifully encompassed in a perfect circle. Of course, this was the just the outside of the building. Inside it held things of more importance, people of more importance, emotions of more importance, _memories of more importance_.

Each floor of the building was an exact duplicate of the next- dark red carpets, white plaster walls, desolate offices and lonely cubicles. A sound booth here and a dance studio there, all throughout the 40 floors of the building. However, our focus is not one of these particular floors, but rather one floor in particular- more specifically, the roof.

The roof wasn't as high as it seemed, but intimidating nonetheless. It was an expanse of gray stone and stairsteps, fenced in by the barriers of railings. On this particular night, it was quite cloudy, but the building stretched out past the clouds, making it seem like the eye of the hurricane- the one static peak in the silvery, swirling darkness. The clouds rubbed against the side of the building like cats, curling into themselves and going through monochromatic metamorphasis- turning from light gray to an apocalyptic cinder hue all within the same minute.

One minute was all it took for things to change completely.

Toes, blue from cruel altitude, combed through the clouds, the vaporized water condensing against skin. Droplets began to pool in the stretched webs of skin, collecting together and falling, like rain, to the ground hundreds of yards below.

Hundreds and hundreds of yards.

A silhouette, frail and troubled, was clearly outlined against the silver light of the moon. The dark shape was completely still, completely silent save for quiet, incoherent gasps and hyperventilation sounds. A jaw was paralyzed, frozen stuck in a silent scream. The gasping grew louder, and a pair of masculine hands flew up to it's forehead, rubbing circles in their throbbing temples.

_Memories._

Everyone knew that Kendall had anger issues. While he was as frail as a blade of straw, everyone knew he was as easily sparked as one, and it didn't take much for him to turn into a wildfire. Because of this, everyone took caution around him, being sure not to set him off. Despite his smallness, it was very intimidating when he was set ablaze, roaring and singing everything he came into contact with- no matter how much he loved them.

The sun set completely and darkness settled upon Kendall's frame, it echoed through the hollow catacombs of his heart, burdened his slumped shoulders and cast menacing shapes upon his skin. The wind gusted. But still he sat; unmoving. He twitched. Twitch, twitch, flinch. Still, he did not budge. Still as a rock and cold as a stone, he was paralyzed, taken prisoner by his own memories and his own emotions. The same memory repeated in his head like a broken record, each scream in his mind like a blow with an axe. It hurt, and he bled, his thoughts flowed and roared and thrashed like an untamable river, breaking barriers in his mind that had taken years of caution and guardedness to build.

The screams continue.

They escalated in volume, growing louder, louder, escalating in volume and effectively shattering his sanity, drowning the last of his strength. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, tried to block out the noises by trapping off his tears, but it didn't work. Nothing ever worked.

Finally, he moved. He slowly sat up, scrabbling his nails against the concrete of the roof. Shakily, quivering, he sits upright and turns his head. He dares to open his eyes, and even in the darkness he can see the memory, bright as day, flash blindingly behind his eyes. The exact place where it happened is only feet away. He clenches his teeth, flexes his hands against the rough stone until they're stinging, stinging and bleeding the mark of his vices, making permanent the memories that were already so. He can't hold it in, it's too much to bear and then he shakes again, he lets out a gut-wrenching screech, falls over to his knees, with a mind plagued by disease and suddenly, all of his emotions release.

He breaks down.

And he cries.

* * *

**a/n: **BUAHAHAHA I DIDN'T WARN YOU ABOUT THE CLIFFHANGER NOW DID I

OR MAYBE THE STORY ENDS THERE HOW ABOUT _THAT_

stickin that shit to the maaaaaaaaaaaan


End file.
